Leonidas Update March 06, 2015

Many events have occurred over the past year with regard to the MOU, JCBA, and USAPA (Former Bargaining Agent - FBA) being decertified on September 16, 2014. That was a good day for PHX based pilots.

West pilots are no longer under the tyranny of a hostile union that was created to disenfranchise a minority group within the union. Since September 16th, when the NMB de-certified the FBA, attempts were made to resolve the misuse of dues monies and its refusal to dissolve and disburse excess dues. After the first demand letter was issued to the FBA Officers, the new FBA, operating as private unincorporated nonprofit organization, decided to file a Declaratory Judgment lawsuit against Velez and Leonidas. Here is the latest filing with regard to this case, our response against FBA’s request for motion to amend. (here) We will continue to handle this as needed to resolve the legal action in NC against Velez and Leonidas.

Over the past six months, the west pilot’s legal team has repeatedly sent requests to the FBA legal team requesting that the FBA dissolve and disburse the excess dues in an appropriate manner. To no one’s surprise and to no avail internally and externally of the FBA, this has done little to resolve the situation. Several weeks ago, three pilots sent additional demand letters to the Officers and BPR of the FBA attempting to one more time to resolve the issue of the defendants retaining and misusing union pilots’ funds collected while the FBA operated as a national unincorporated labor organization within the meaning of 29 U.S.C. § 402(i). The plaintiffs’ demand letter is (here) for your reading. As you can assume, these latest demand letters have fallen on hollow ground.

Late last month, three former US Airways pilots filed a LMRDA lawsuit against the FBA National officers and various members of the BPR. The application to file a complaint was filed February 23, 2015 in the United Sates District Court of North Carolina, Charlotte Division. The protocol for filing a lawsuit of this type is to file an application requesting the approval to file the lawsuit.

Today, the application to file the lawsuit was granted, and the LMRDA lawsuit was deemed filed on February 23. (here) is the Order from United States District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr., and (here) is the LMRDA lawsuit. Because the LMRDA lawsuit is related to the action that the FBA filed, we have given notice to the judge in the earlier lawsuit that the LMRDA action has been filed. That Notice is (here).

The years of attempting to resolve issues with the FBA internally have also come to an end. With this inability to resolve differences, the PHX BPR reps, John Scherff, Dave Simmons and Eric Ferguson have officially resigned from the FBA BPR. You can read their resignation letters (here).

The various legal fronts confronted over the years would not have been possible without the continued financial support of all our supporters. We are grateful and thank you for all the years of your financial support. Since we are pushing to the end of this endeavor, we are still in need of every West pilots push to contribute to the monthly Leonidas Push Campaign. The Push Campaign will be our main source of funding the various legal fronts. Please sign up (here) to be part of the Push needed to complete this endeavor.